


The Good and the Bad

by greygerbil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Omega Benny Lafitte
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-07 22:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17374724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Benny can see that Dean is struggling with Purgatory, but even in a dreadful place like that, new opportunities sometimes present themselves.





	The Good and the Bad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firefly124](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefly124/gifts).



> I hope you're having a great 2019 so far and that you'll like this fic!

“So, revenge?”

Benny shrugged his shoulders as he looked at Dean, who sat opposite of him leaning against a tree. It was a cold – day, night, you could never tell with Purgatory, but it was freezing nevertheless, and yet they didn’t dare light a fire for attracting even more attention than Dean already drew just being his human self.

“Not very original, I’ll admit,” Benny drawled. “But that’s why I need to get back topside.”

“Well, I get it,” Dean said, idly crumpling a leaf between his fingers. “Your maker sounds like a real piece of work.”

Benny snorted. “Yeah. And the Old Man could be jealous with his pack. Thou shalt have no other alphas before him,” he said, twisting the bible verse with a sardonic smile. For the time he had been with him, it really had seemed to him like the Old Man was a god. What a moron he’d been.

Dean raised a brow. “You ran off with another alpha?”

“Yeah.” Benny glanced at him. “What’s so surprising about that? You never fell in love?”

“Not a good topic,” Dean muttered and Benny could only agree, considering what his affection had led to for poor Andrea all those years ago. Brushing the pieces of the leaf from his fingers, Dean continued: “Just thought people used to look down on that even more in the past, two alphas dating. But I guess vampires don’t have a lot of reason to worry about what humans think, anyway.”

For a moment, Benny looked at him in honest confusion, before he realised the misunderstanding. To be fair to the hunter, it wasn’t like Dean was the first one getting tripped up. He grinned.

“I always forget how terrible human noses are,” he answered.

Benny frowned at him. “What?”

“A vampire could smell I’m an omega half a mile away.”

Dean stared at him for a long moment of stunned silence that was broken when Benny started laughing.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost – and I thought you were used to that kind of thing.”

“Wait, but... we’ve been running around this place for months, wouldn’t you have gone into heat at some point?”

“I don’t get them down here, probably because I’m even more dead that I already am topside,” Benny said with a shrug. “Which is a good thing because otherwise I’d’ve been killed a thousand times over.”

“Right…” Dean drew himself up a bit. “Man, you don’t look the part – or act it, since you’re such a stubborn bastard.”

“If that’s your definition of an alpha, it sure makes sense that you are one, chief.”

Dean snorted, smiling briefly, which softened the shock on his face and was a rare and, to Benny, quite pretty sight.

-

“This isn’t happening.”

Dean glanced through the high branches of the trees up into the sky, where the harpies were circling like vultures, and stepped a little further back into the shadows.

“Yeah,” Benny had to admit. “We’re not going to make it across an open field like that. They have the high ground.”

“Guess we have no choice but to rest here then and hope the birds scatter eventually. This is some real Hitchcock crap.”

Benny raised a brow.

“Hitchcock?”

“ _The Birds_. I’ll get you a DVD when we’re topside.”

“I have no idea what a DVD is, either, but sounds good,” Benny said, settling down by Dean’s side on the ground.

They’d just fought off a gaggle of werewolves here and he wasn’t happy staying, really, in case they had friends to bring. Still, it was better than trying to fight harpies who had taken to the air. You didn’t want to mess with that, Dean was right. For a human, he had an impressive grasp on the specifics of monsters of all sorts. He knew as much as Benny did and he’d been in monsterland for half a century.

“That wound looks nasty,” Benny commented, looking at a gash that ran across Dean’s calf. Being deader than dead left him without a thirst for blood, luckily, because Dean sure got banged up a lot down here.

Dean shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing to do about it.”

Benny looked around and noticed a shred of someone’s shirt that had gotten torn off in the fight with the pack. He walked over to grab it before he returned to Dean.

“At least bandage it,” he argued.

Dean seemed to want to make it a fight, but his shoulders sank after a moment and he and nodded his head, apparently not able to work up the energy to argue, after all. Benny knelt down and tied the fabric around Dean’s calf.

“Too tight?” he asked.

“Works. Thanks,” Dean said, stretching out his legs with a sigh. “Should’ve thought of that myself.”

Benny nodded his head. There was a disinterest towards his wounds Dean had developed over the last few days that Benny didn’t like. He was still as driven to find his angel friend as before, but he got quiet more often now, with a faraway look in his eyes. Benny didn’t worry they wouldn’t make it topside because Dean’s enthusiasm would wear off – he had that brother to get to –, but that didn’t mean, he realised now, that he didn’t worry about Dean.

Not too surprising, maybe. He was the type of person who’d always grown on Benny. Resilient, headstrong, loyal, kind of an ass.

“I’ll take first and second watch both,” Benny said. “I’m not tired. You get some sleep.”

Dean barked a short laugh.

“Are you getting soft on me?”

“No way. I just know I need to protect my squishy human from tiring himself out,” Benny answered, showing his fangs in a grin.

“Oh yeah? I thought I was the one supposed to keep you safe and sound, seeing as you’re such a delicate omega flower,” Dean answered, pushing his machete back under his belt.

Benny gave him a playful shove and Dean retaliated, sending them both to the ground, since Benny wasn’t quite expecting the force Dean put behind the movement. For a moment, Benny’s instincts were on fire, all ready to throw Dean across the clearing, defend himself, but this was not a true attack and in fact, the warm but harmless press of a friendly body against his own was a welcome feeling he had all but forgotten in his eternity down here.

Dean rolled off of him.

“Don’t underestimate humans,” he told him, proudly.

“I’m learning that lesson, yeah.”

Benny sat up and watched Dean get as comfortable as one could on a pile of old, damp, rustling leaves.

-

“Why a forest?”

Benny turned away from watching the underbrush for trouble to glance at Dean, who stood staring up at one of the giant trees.

“What?”

“This place, why is it a forest?” Dean asked, irritably, like Benny had made it so himself.

“No idea, but it’s not any more interesting to look at after fifty years. You can start telling the trees apart, though.”

Benny tried to keep his voice light. He could see in the way Dean held himself, all square shoulders and ramrod-straight back and hands curling into fists, that something was going sideways right now – and he knew it had been for a while now. However, Dean shook his head with a quick, twitchy movement and marched on.

“Chief, wait a moment.”

Dean stopped abruptly. “What is it? You see anything?”

Benny had better senses, being a vampire, and thus made for a good hunting dog. He shook his head now, though, and stepped up to Dean’s side.

“Are you alright?”

Dean looked at him through narrowed eyes.

“What does it matter?” he answered, harshly. “We have a job to do, alright? Cas could be anywhere.”

“Yeah, but we’ve been going around for a while now, so thirty more minutes won’t hurt.”

“Yes, they fucking will!” Dean exploded at him. “I have to get back to my brother! You don’t understand what kind of mess I left him in! And Cas?! God knows where he got stuck in this hellhole!”

Dean stopped himself when Benny didn’t react, just looked back into Dean’s eyes, which were alight with anger. Eventually, he turned his head, silent like a storm after the thunder.

“We’ll find your friend,” Benny said. “We made it this far, didn’t we? He has to be somewhere.”

Dean pressed his lips into a thin line. “Since when are you hot on finding him? I thought you would try to talk me out of it again.”

“Oh, I still think it’s a shit idea, but obviously it’s a shit idea that means a lot to you. So… if that’s what you wanna do, it’s what we’re gonna do.”

And, Benny had to admit to himself, helping Dean find the angel had changed from something he knew he would have to do to get his ride topside to something he wanted to do because he knew it would make Dean happy.

Dean regarded him for a long moment before he gave him a hint of a smile and slapped him on the back.

“Sorry,” he said, after a moment.

“Yeah, no problem. You think being stuck here is getting to you?” Benny asked, remembering Dean’s comment about the trees.

“I’ve no problem killing monsters. That’s what I do on earth, too.”

“No, I mean, Purgatory. The place. This endless forest.”

“Like… cabin fever?” Dean asked, thoughtfully. “Maybe. I feel like we’ve been walking in circles since I got here, everything looks the same. How didn’t you go insane stuck down here for fifty years?”

“I think you either go crazy in year one, or you get used to it,” Benny answered. “Just try not to think about it so much. Think about the people you meet, or monsters, whatever. Talk to whoever you can even if they just scream back at you, so you remember you’re not actually an animal roaming the forest.”

“I’d rather just talk to you, I think that’s best for my head,” Dean said. “You’re the nicest thing I’ve met down here.”

Benny laughed quietly.

“Thanks, I think.”

-

“We’re following the river now?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, that’s the best way not to get lost around this part.”

Benny knelt down on the ground and dragged his hand through the cool water, washing dried blood off his fingers. Dean sat by his side and cupped his hands to splash water in his face.

“Want to stop to take a bath?” Benny asked.

“Sounds like a plan. Though now that I know you’re an omega, should I be turning around?” Dean teased.

He was a bit easier to talk to now than he had been for the last week. It seemed Benny’s words had stuck, or maybe just the chance to vent his frustrations at someone. The first shock of the message of Benny’s nature seemed to have worn off, too, and Benny had to admit he quite like the way Dean had took it; not pretending he didn’t know, but never going easy on him, either. One more thing that made it too easy to like him.

“Only if you don’t like what you see, chief,” Benny gave back with a lazy grin.

“Well… except for me, nothing else down here looks as good as you, so who am I to say no?”

It was just that fraction of a step further than their usual back and forth, a little more daring, Benny thought, glancing at Dean, who regarded him closely, almost curiously, watching for a reaction.

Benny pulled off his shirt and grinned at Dean.


End file.
